Alessandro Molinari

Italian painter, draughtsman. Studied at the Königlich-Preussische Akademie der Künste und mechanischen Wissenschaften in Berlin (from 1787). Worked in Vienna (1795) and Glogau (1796–97), where he decorated the Jesuit church with the help of E.T.A. Hoffmann, who later depicted him as Berthold in Die Jesuiterkirche in G. (1815–16). Lived in Weimar (1800–06) and Russia (1806–16), where he worked in Moscow, St Petersburg and provincial towns, painting portraits of members of the imperial family and the Russian aristocracy. Taught painting to the family of Count Dmitry Buturlin in Moscow and opened a confectionary shop on Nevsky Prospekt in St Petersburg (1812). Lived and worked in Warsaw (1816–22), Dresden (1822), Berlin (1823–26), Warsaw (1829–30) and Dresden (1830–31).